


Celestial Bodies

by SuiteJayne



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dirty Talk, F/M, First Time, Irene Adler is a good friend (turns out), Jewish Character, Jewish Holidays, Jewish!Irene Adler, Light Angst, Oral Sex, POV Sherlock Holmes, Pining, Porn with Feelings, Post-Reichenbach, Sukkot, Vaginal Sex, Vanilla, possibly only time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:54:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25500958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuiteJayne/pseuds/SuiteJayne
Summary: Post-The Reichenbach Fall. Sherlock is hiding out in London while preparing to take down Moriarty’s remaining operation. Lonely and longing for John, he finally can’t resist when Irene Adler again extends an invitation to have dinner with her.
Relationships: Irene Adler/Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson (reference)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	Celestial Bodies

**Author's Note:**

> Note that the sex is graphic but very straightforward, because Irene's specialty isn't really my area. : )

At 2 a.m. his phone sighed obscenely, waking him up, or at any rate, causing him to open his eyes.

_So, now we’re both dead._

He turned the ringer off and set the phone down again. 

Two weeks later another message arrived.

_As one ghost to another, the afterlife can get a little lonely._

He turned back to Google Earth and a Serbian news site open on his laptop.

The next day (or he thought it was the next day; they were starting to bleed together) he was in the shower when his phone sighed again. And again. And again. He stepped out, dripping, onto the bathroom floor to read the texts.

_I’m haunting a graveside tonight. Someone you know. Come and join me._

_I promise no moaning and rattling of chains._

_Unless that’s what you like._

He felt a twist in his chest, as if someone were wringing his heart out like a rag. She had been right before, of course. He had never felt lonelier. It must, he thought, be worse than it would otherwise have been because of what had come immediately before. Before he’d met John, isolation had been his baseline. He hadn’t understood that he was living in a kind of purgatory. And then he’d found John, or vice versa. The word “friend” was inadequate from the start. So was the word “boyfriend,” when their relationship shifted. John’s presence changed not only his view of the world but his own place in it. Other people, not just John, liked him better because John liked him. They’d had a Christmas party, for God’s sake. A disastrous one, to be sure, but that would have been unimaginable without John. 

Loneliness? Another inadequate word. He wasn’t sure if he could stand it anymore. 

The most cautious course would be never to reveal that he was alive, but since he had kept her secret, he felt confident--as confident as he had ever been where she was concerned--that she would keep his secret in return. There _was_ the possibility that she might stab him with a syringe of tranquilizer and abduct him. Maybe tie him up and have her way with him. The thought was disturbing but not completely without appeal. At any rate, it seemed worth the risk. He gave in; he would at least see The Woman if he couldn’t see John. 

There was a new moon that night and the cemetery was surprisingly ill lit. Perfect, really, except that he’d prefer to lurk for a few minutes and watch before approaching her. The problem was that he could barely see his hand in front of his face. He made his way to his gravestone almost by instinct but found he was standing there alone. This was the first time he’d been here since he’d spied on John’s visit. He remembered the enormous effort it had taken to stay hidden; he’d had to remind himself every second that he was protecting John, that he was giving up everything to keep John safe. It had at least made him feel vaguely heroic, or anyway anti-heroic. 

He touched the top of the stone, cool, rough, wet with that evening’s drizzle. Suddenly, a small hand was on top of his own. He turned to peer at its owner in the gloom. A glimmer of light played over her face from the closest street lights. He saw it glint on her teeth; she was smiling.

“You _are_ alive,” she breathed, and gave his hand the tiniest squeeze. 

He smiled back, although he was not sure if she could see it.

“I’m sorry about what happened to you,” she continued. 

“Likewise.”

“Have dinner with me.”

He laughed for the first time since...he couldn’t really remember. He took his hand away but immediately she moved to his side and held it again. They stood side by side for a few minutes in silence. Then she moved slightly closer; their sleeves were touching.

“Come on. You’ve already died. Don’t you want even the slightest taste of heaven?”

He could feel his face flushing, but of course, she couldn’t know that. It was exhilarating to hear another human voice unmediated by phone or screen. It had been weeks since he’d seen Mycroft or Molly. It was exhilarating to be in her presence again, and to know--really know, from the hairs standing on end on his arms, from the trace of her distinctive perfume--that the world still contained this exquisite person and her beautiful and frightening mind. He put their joined hands in his jacket pocket.

\--

It was an unseasonably warm autumn evening several weeks later. He had the window open; he could hear the noise of traffic and passers by. He was playing Schubert and occasionally, pedestrians would pause to glance up, looking for the source of the music. It was almost like human contact. It was as close as he’d come since the night when he’d held her hand. No sooner had this thought crossed his mind than he heard a text from her arrive. He set down the violin and snatched up his phone, almost dropping it.

_Keep me company tonight. I’m right where you left me once before. I’ll be on the roof after sundown._

Another rooftop? He made a face. He considered asking her to meet at the cemetery again, but decided to try exposure therapy. He’d risk the tube journey but wear his usual disguise: jeans, work boots, and most importantly, reflective vest--strangely, clothing designed for high visibility was very effective camouflage. As he took the clothes out of the wardrobe, his eye fell on John’s red shirt. He had fished it out of the laundry the day before his own death. Sentiment, of course, mucking about dangerously with his head, but it was one of the few things he allowed himself to take from the flat and stash at Molly’s. He had to have something, something physical, something that existed outside the rooms and corridors in his mind palace that were filled with memories of John.

Now he took the shirt off its hanger and put it on. It smelled of John; sadness shot through with a thrill of oxytocin coursed through him. As long as he was doing foolish things, taking unnecessary risks, why not do one other foolish thing? He buttoned the shirt up, tucking the ends into his jeans and rolling the sleeves midway up his forearms to hide the fact that they were too short.

He caught a companionable hint of John’s scent from time to time as he waited in the tube station and stood on the train, hunching his shoulders and peering at his phone for the whole journey, making himself as easy to overlook as he could. He disembarked at Stamford Hill and found the quiet street with a rundown shop at the end of it. Round the back of the building was an unassuming door that he had seen her let herself into once before, when they’d returned together in secret from Karachi.

It was locked, but that didn’t pose much of a problem. He picked the lock and entered a narrow stairway. He climbed to the top, shedding his reflective vest, and pushed open a metal door onto the roof. Stepping out, he collided with a man who wore a kippah on his closely cropped gray hair. 

“ _Antshuldigt mir_.”

The man descended the stairs and the door closed behind him. 

She was sitting on an overstuffed velveteen sofa inside a curious structure. It had three walls that were about fifteen feet square; the walls were made of canvas stretched on a wooden frame. The roof, such as it was, was laid with palm fronds that overlapped incompletely so that the sky was visible through them. Fairy lights looped along the walls and ceiling. On the ground next to the sofa was a makeshift bed: a mattress covered with a sumptuous down duvet. 

When she saw him she smiled and colored with pleasure. She patted the seat next to her; he approached and sat.

She was wearing a dark green dress that came down to her ankles. It had long sleeves and a mock turtleneck. He didn’t think he’d ever seen so little of her flesh before. It didn’t seem to matter; her presence was as confusingly stirring as ever. She wordlessly produced glasses and a bottle of wine; poured; handed him a glass. They sipped in silence for several minutes.

“Who was the man I passed on his way out?”

“My rabbi.”

“You’re...practicing?”

Irene raised a hand, palm up, indicating their surroundings. He looked around.

“What is it? What are we sitting in?”

“It’s a sukkah. A recreation of huts built at harvest time centuries ago. People would work in the agricultural fields all day and sleep out under the stars.” 

“Your rabbi…I thought no one else knew where you lived--or even that you were alive.”

“You know how it is. At least, now you do. Sometimes I need someone to talk to. He’s a good listener.”

He remembered that he had glimpsed tassels-- _tzitzit_ \--dangling from the man’s shirt sleeves. 

“You’re _Orthodox_?”

“ _Modern_ Orthodox.”

“And that’s compatible with…” He couldn’t think of a delicate way to refer to her vocation.

“Not exactly.” She smiled and shrugged almost imperceptibly. “You said it yourself, Sherlock. I’m _practicing_.” 

“You mean you’re a work in progress?”

Irene smiled more broadly, showing a row of perfect, white teeth.

“It depends how you define progress. Listen, a word of advice: When you belong somewhere, or with somebody, don’t take it for granted. Hang onto it if you can, however you can.” She slid slightly closer and drained her glass, setting it aside.

“And now,” she said. “I want to know. How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

Irene sighed with mock impatience. 

“There were at least a dozen witnesses. Did you hire them? Pay them off? You had help, obviously. John was in on it, of course.”

Sherlock managed a tight smile.

“Wasn’t he?”

“Yes, of course,” he replied at last.

“Or was he? Maybe the safest course would be for him not to know,” she mused, her eyes locked on his. “Whatever remains of Moriarty’s network must be monitoring him. What if he made a careless move and led them to you? Because if he knew you were alive, he could hardly keep away from you, now could he?”

Sherlock cleared his throat slightly and looked away, even as he realized that these guilty movements telegraphed the truth to her quite clearly. He really needed to control himself. How did she manage to have this effect on him? He glanced back at her; she was positively glowing.

“He _doesn’t_ know. My God,” Irene said. “This must be killing him.” 

He was disappointed to feel tears springing to his eyes.

“Oh, look at you! I knew it. Go on, then--were you sleeping together?”

“This again.” He managed to sound fairly calm, although this line of questioning made his stomach do flips.

“Which one of you is the bottom? It’s you, isn’t it?”

“I don’t--”

“You loved it. You loved taking his cock.”

“You can’t--”

“You know, if the mood strikes you, I have this fantastic double dildo. See, one end goes inside me, and the other end goes inside you. I’ll let you in on a secret. Most people would use a harness, but my pelvic floor is so strong, I don’t need one. I’ll just hold it in place, in my tight cunt, and fuck you senseless. What do you say?”

What _did_ he say? At least this abrupt turn in the conversation had stemmed the wave of sadness that had been gathering to drown him. Part of him wanted to sprint down the stairs and into the street. His heart pounded in his ears as if he were already on his way. At the same time, he realized, shifting slightly in his seat, he was getting hard. This fact appeared not to be lost on her. Irene slid closer still. Sherlock tried not to press back into the corner of the sofa. 

Irene arranged her legs so that she was kneeling on the seat, almost eliminating their height difference. Her left arm slid along the back of the sofa until it surrounded his right shoulder. She leaned in until their faces were just inches apart. Her fine features were vulpine. She was so close, but she wasn’t touching him.

“Or what about this,” she almost whispered. “You lie down right over there, and I’ll straddle your face. I’ve got nothing on under this dress. It’ll cover you; it’ll be like being in a tent! You’ll be in total darkness. I’ll let you fuck me with your tongue and suck my clit and I’ll grind my cunt all over your face until I come.”

Her eyes with their impossible, unreadable clarity were fixed on his and her lips parted as her tongue traced the edge of her front teeth. His expression must have betrayed discomfort, because she continued, “Oh, you’ve never done that before and you don’t know the ropes. Don’t worry, I’ll teach you. Speaking of ropes, how _do_ you feel about bondage?”

 _Say something_ , he silently urged himself. His mind was blank. _Engage in witty repartee, for God’s sake._ This conversation was getting away from him. She smiled, impishly but not unkindly.

“I’ll stop talking like this, shall I?”

Sherlock released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“No, it’s...fine.”

Then they were both laughing.

Irene reached out and with two fingers, traced the line of his jaw from where it met his ear to his chin, then brushed her thumb across his lips. She moved in closer and he did not shrink back. She leaned in and placed her lips against his, tilting her head only slightly so that their noses rubbed together. Although Sherlock had been expecting this, his body tensed and his lips refused to soften. Undeterred, she left her mouth on his and opened it so that the tip of her tongue could explore the seam where his lips pressed together. After a few moments his mouth relaxed and opened. She softly took first his lower lip and then his upper lip in her mouth, sucking gently and then allowing her teeth to scrape his skin. She put a hand up to his face and stroked his hair back from his left temple. He willed himself to move his hands from where they were sitting stiffly at his sides and touched her narrow shoulders, then, emboldened, her neck, then plunged his fingers into her hair where it started its sweep upwards at the base of her skull. There was so much of it. 

\--

Half an hour later they were lying on the mattress kissing. They lay on top of the duvet, clothed except for their shoes, which were tidily lined up at the foot of the mattress. Sherlock was on his back and Irene lay next to him, her torso snaking up over his, her head propped up on her left hand and her right arm thrown across his chest. 

“Mmmm,” she breathed, pulling away and looking into his face. “ _Have_ you done this before?”

He nodded, then cocked his head to one side.

“Sort of.”

“Only with John,” she completed his thought.

Sherlock lowered his eyelids in silent assent. It was an enormous admission, the biggest he could imagine. He suddenly felt sickened. He was putting John in danger. _Was_ he putting John in danger? His mind rapidly played out a series of scenarios in which Irene used the knowledge that he was alive as a bargaining chip to extract some form of protection, or at least some cash, from Moriarty’s associates. But to try this would be to risk her own neck as well. He looked at her, tried again in vain to read her intentions in her expression. She merely looked amused.

“I’m not going to use this against you,” she said, doing a much better job of reading his thoughts than he could hers. “I _like_ you.” She poked his chest with her finger.

He relaxed a little. Why did he believe her? Maybe because he liked her too--a rare enough thing. 

“Do you want to do more than this?” Irene then asked seriously.

Sherlock hesitated; the fear that had clenched around his heart a moment ago was fading.

“Would it involve…” He made a vague gesture.

“What?”

“Handcuffs. Whips. Dungeons. That kind of thing.”

She smiled. “Do you want it to?”

He hesitated again.

“Not really,” he finally replied. 

“Then, no, it wouldn’t.”

“I thought--”

“Shall I tell you something about myself? Something very personal?”

Sherlock looked in her eyes for some hint of mockery or deception. Their faces were so close together that he had to focus on one eye at a time, transfer his gaze back and forth. He nodded.

“What do you think I really get off on?”

“Something to do with...causing pain.”

“No. Causing pleasure. Finding out what other people want and giving it to them. It’s true that I specialize in people with dark fantasies. And it’s true that I’m at the top of my game when I’m in control.” She shifted to prop herself on her arms and look frankly into his face. “But control doesn’t come from forcing people. It comes from their willing dependence. They depend on me for pleasure they can’t get anywhere else, and I decide when to grant it to them.”

Sherlock could understand her lust for this kind of soft power. When he and John were on a crime scene--when Lestrade was forced to subvert police procedures and bend the rules for him because he needed him--when Donovan and Anderson were forced to overcome their contempt, resentment and distrust of him because what he provided could not be had anywhere else… It was gratifying. It was better than gratifying; it was intoxicating, he remembered with a surge of pleasure. 

It was somewhat the reverse for him in a sexual context. John was the source of all his pleasure. He depended on John. Did the knowledge that he had this power arouse John? Sherlock had never considered it, and John had never seemed to lean into that dynamic. Instead, he’d been as considerate and willing as you might expect from his readiness to pick up the shopping and clean the kitchen. As constant as the northern star. 

“So, will you let me find out what you want?”

Sherlock had almost forgotten what they were talking about. Images of John kept crowding into his head--John poking at his keyboard, John taking his hand in the back of a taxi, John smiling sleepily at him from his pillow. An aching knot formed in his throat. He shook his head.

“I...had what I wanted. For a while. John is what I want.”

The thought that this might offend or anger her occurred to him, given their intimate position, but he did not perceive any trace of offense in her expression. Her smile did not flicker. Indeed, it seemed to warm, to offer reassurance. The painful lump in his throat eased.

“Of course he is,” Irene said with a nod. “Okay, let’s think of it another way. Can we maybe cause each other some pleasure? Maybe take our minds off things for a bit?”

“My mind is capable of more than one thing at a time,” he said, regaining his equanimity and with it, his prickliness. 

This elicited a delighted grin.

“I love it when you’re a little bratty,” she said, leaning in again to kiss him and murmuring against his lips. “What about spanking? Can I at least spank you?”

He laughed and kissed her back. Then he slid his arms around her back and found a zip that let him part her dress from the nape of her neck all the way down to the small of her back. He slid his hands up her back, feeling the hidden movements of her spine and shoulder blades under her skin. She sat up to undo the buttons on his shirt--John’s shirt--as he eased the dress off her shoulders. She extricated her arms from her sleeves expertly while continuing to undress him. He sat up, lifted his arms so that she could tug off the tee shirt he wore underneath. 

“You are so beautiful,” Irene breathed, smoothing her hands over his bare shoulders and down his chest and kissing him again.

“You--” Sherlock began to murmur into her mouth. He didn’t finish the thought; instead focused on tugging her dress down to her hips and moved his hands up the swoop of her waist. Her frame was slight and seemed constructed entirely of unfamiliar, dramatic curves--like some small, jewel-like Alpine country. So unlike John, it was almost as if they were two different species. He moved his hands over her breasts experimentally. They were small, smooth, deceptively heavy. He marveled at the way he could move them and feel their dense core slide over her rib cage. He pushed them up and together and squeezed a little and she sighed. His cock was hard; her nipples, too, were erect; the evening chill starting to descend? The contact? 

Sherlock sat up on his knees and shoved the duvet aside. He wrapped his arms around Irene and turned her to lay her down on the mattress. Her body was light in his arms, but strong, like a rope stretched tight or a power line singing with electricity. He moved on top of her and kissed her, sliding his tongue into her mouth. She put her arms around his neck and exhaled a long, wine-sweetened breath through nose and mouth; he felt the tickle of it on his face. With his left arm still wrapped around her back he palmed her breast with his right hand. Then she reached down and undid his jeans. He took his hands off her long enough to work his clothes off the rest of the way. 

He lay back down between her legs and plunged his face into the angle where her neck met her shoulders, then moved lower and opened his mouth to lick her nipple and suck a mouthful of breast. 

“Mmm,” she hummed appreciatively, eyes closing.

Suddenly Sherlock felt his mouth water and he mouthed each of her breasts while tugging her dress down over her thighs. She wriggled out of it, and now she was completely naked, as she’d said. But they moved under the duvet before he could really take in the sight of her. Never mind; he remembered quite well. He moved down her body, biting and licking at her sides, her belly, until he got to the patch of pubic hair. It was tidy, manicured like a garden, in contrast to John’s wilderness. He spread her legs and nudged his nose into the crease where her thigh met her groin, inhaled her scent, licked and sucked the inside of her thigh. 

All the while Irene was gripping his hair, massaging it and tugging it and moving her fingers to play around his ears, his temples, his jaw, whispering breathy encouragement-- _yeah, that feels good_. Now he put his nose and mouth very close to the opening of her vagina, putting out his tongue to part her labia gingerly. She shivered a little. She tasted vaguely like seawater. 

He teased the silky flesh apart with his tongue. Her labia seemed to cling together, curtains reluctant to be parted. At the same time, liquid was seeping from inside her, like some mossy artesian well. He stroked between her labia with an experimental finger, then pushed it inside. She felt hot, wet, the walls of her vagina moving, responding, alive. He withdrew his finger and smoothed the sticky secretions over her clitoris. It had grown engorged, that little analogue to a prick. Or was a prick the analogue? The overgrown, undiscriminating cousin of this more subtle member? He licked vertically so that the flat of his tongue moved over the wet entrance to her vagina all the way up the underside of her clit. She sighed raggedly, and he did it again, then he let his tongue slide over the tip of her clit, started to lick the little hooded glans, but she pushed him away.

“Not yet, too sensitive,” Irene breathed. “Why don’t you come up here where I can get a good look at you?”

Sherlock complied, ascending her body until they were face to face. Their noses brushed together again as he kissed her. The duvet had slid off; he tugged it back up over the two of them and slid his arms underneath her. Her arms came around him and her fingernails traced tracks down his back like rain. Her eyes in the half-dark were black pools, and he could see the fairy lights gleaming in them.

“I want you inside me,” she said.

“Yes,” he said simply, and suddenly there was a condom in her hand and he was sitting back to put it on and immediately sinking back down on top of her. She reached down to take hold of his erection and guided him between her legs, sliding the head of his cock between her labia, just skirting her opening, anointing him with her wetness. Then she pushed the head against her clit. He could feel the shaft of it like a taut wire moving back and forth under her skin. He suddenly felt beads of sweat spring into being on his forehead. He grabbed his cock and she took her hand away as he quickly found her opening, slick with juices, and entered her, rocking his hips forward and pushing into the mattress with his toes so that he sheathed himself in her completely in one go. 

“Oh God, yes,” she moaned. 

The walls of her vagina hugged his cock, squeezed it. Sherlock felt her legs wrap themselves around his waist and the angle changed; she was tighter. He propped himself up on his hands and thrust slowly into her, watching her. Her eyes and mouth were closed. She was biting her lower lip and breathing deeply through her nose. She stayed that way, seemingly lost in an inner experience of sensation, for a while; then he slowed his movements, looking for more feedback, and she opened her eyes to meet his. She smiled, her expression joyful, uncomplicated. 

He started moving again, experimenting with withdrawing his cock almost completely and pushing it in again, and her eyes fluttered shut again. Her head tilted back and her lips parted, the tip of her tongue caught between her front teeth. After several more strokes he dropped down on his elbows and slid his forearms under her so that he could grip her shoulders from behind and pull her down, penetrating her more deeply. The head of his cock kept bumping up against something--her cervix?--and she started to groan softly. The sound was slightly lower than her speaking voice; his mind supplied the strange fantasy that some goddess was speaking to him through her vocal cords, as though she were an ancient Greek oracle. She moved her hands from where they’d been tracing the muscles of his upper arms and grabbed his buttocks to keep him sunk into her. She breathed his name.

Then she was coming and her muscles were clenching around him. After the rhythmic spasms subsided, her legs ceased to grip his waist and she seemed to fall away back into the mattress. She panted for a few moments, his cock still inside her but her limbs fallen away from him like wilted vines. She opened her eyes to meet his, then pulled away, reaching down to hold the condom in place so that it stayed on as he slid out of her. Then she sat up and pushed his left shoulder till he got the hint and turned over to lie on his back. 

Irene straddled him, kneeling, then planted one foot flat beside his hip and guided his cock back into her. Her vagina seemed to grip him like a fist as she moved her hips laterally, sliding forward and back; the effect was to narrow the opening and squeeze his erection through it with each forward movement. She was taking her pleasure, reddening, sighing, releasing new waves of wetness. And she’d been right--seeing her open enjoyment, the knowledge that he was giving it to her--it was enormously arousing. She glanced at him through lowered lids from time to time to gauge his reactions, then looked down to watch his cock disappearing inside her. He admired the sight of it too. It felt good--wonderful, really. He was incredibly hard, but he seemed to have reached a kind of pleasant stasis where he felt he could fuck her indefinitely without coming. He could just make her climax over and over. They could stay here forever. He would never go back to the desolate bedsit, never leave London. 

But then Irene shivered; the sun had set and the night really was becoming cooler. She slowed her movements, gathered the duvet around her, looked around, found John’s shirt too. She pulled it on, buttoning a couple of buttons haphazardly down her front. Her small frame swam in the fabric; her belly showed under the buttons. Sherlock made a half-strangled noise, grabbed her hips and pulled them down so that he was as deep inside as he could get. He started thrusting up into her and grabbed the front of the shirt to drag her face closer to his. Their height difference meant that when she leaned in to kiss him, he slid out of her. He rolled her onto her back again and pushed back inside, immediate and urgent and forceful enough to make her gasp. He bent to push his face into the shirt, now bunched up around her armpits, breathed in, closed his eyes, and allowed himself to imagine for just a moment that it was John underneath him, John all around him, and then he was driving into her hard until he came with a half-moan, half-sob, and she was coming again too, her whole body galvanized around him as though electrified.

\-- 

“What I wouldn’t give for a blackout,” Irene said, adjusting her head where it lay on his shoulder and rearranging the duvet over them.

“Why?”

“So we could see the stars.”

Sherlock looked up through the gaps in the palm-leaf roof. She was right; a few stars were faintly visible, but that was all. The orange glow of the city made the sky look smoky, opaque, even though it was a clear night. Celestial bodies were hardly his area, but he understood that if all the lights in London went out, a million pinpricks of light would spread in a wave across the sky.

No, he corrected himself. The stars were already there, of course; he just couldn’t see them.

A breeze came and caught the walls of the sukkah like sails so that they shuddered faintly. He pulled her closer, fit her against him, tightened his arms around her. The breeze was a silky corner of the blanket of air that wrapped the whole earth, wrapped their two bodies, coursed down Baker Street, snuck into the flat and caressed John’s face as he lay asleep.

\--

Two days later he was on yet another rooftop, this time across the street from John’s surgery. He would leave tomorrow. He sat as comfortably as he could and produced binoculars--an embarrassing but necessary accessory--to watch John at work through the window: examining patients, typing on his computer, talking with the blond manager of the surgery. He would store every glimpse in his mind palace and could return to this again and again. 

He watched as John paid careful attention to each patient, the fleeting expressions passing over his face like fast-moving clouds. Concern, reassurance, puzzlement, discovery: thoughts and emotions as forthright and wonderfully readable to him as ever. And then when John was alone, the sadness would appear, would seem to surface on his face as though rising up out of deep water, and settle there. He wondered if the same were true of his own face, but of course, there was no one there to tell him.

That night as he packed, another text from her.

_Bon voyage._

_I’ll take the bait. How did you know?_ he replied.

_Lucky guess?_

_I might not be back._

_I figured._

He set his phone down. It breathed another sigh.

_We’ll always have Hackney._

_: )_

_< 3_

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve always thought it would be romantic to have sex in a sukkah! I’m not sure how realistic it is for an Orthodox rabbi, Modern or not, to agree to provide pastoral services to a former dominatrix alone on a rooftop, but perhaps he has some halachic work-around for this kind of situation…


End file.
